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showing 4,203 library results for 'navy'

The Baltic cauldron : two navies and the fight for freedom /Michael Ellis, Gustaf von Hofsten and Derek Law. "The Baltic Cauldron commemorates several centuries of Anglo-Swedish relations, which, after events in Eastern Europe in 2022, have acquired a new resonance as a record of the struggle for survival and independence of nations bordering the Baltic. This is a history of navies in the Baltic Sea and its approaches, from the Skaggerak to the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. This book portrays the relationship between the Swedish and British Navies over the centuries. In the 1700s, Britain was a global naval power and developed doctrine, ships and culture which were copied by others, but the relationship with Sweden became special. While Britain and its navy depended upon Baltic Sea trade for timber, tar, iron and grain, the foundation was laid for the Swedish Navy, its self-image, tactics, materials and traditions. Among the subjects addressed are: the origins of the Swedish navy; the first English fleet to visit the Baltic; Charles XII?s amphibious campaigns; the English influence on Swedish shipbuilding; the quixotic Admiral Sir Sidney Smith; Admirals Lord Nelson and James Saumarez at war and peace; and, in the 20th century, the hunt for the Bismarck, Churchill?s planned attack on arctic Luleêa in 1940, and blockade-runners in the Second World War. This ground-breaking study is filled with new insights, and contains much previously unpublished information, some based on Swedish sources which are not often quoted in the English-speaking world. The book is brought up to date with an account of the capture by Iranian forces of Stena Impero. Lessons in sea power are drawn throughout the book. The Baltic Cauldron is a fitting and worthy tribute to both the Royal Navy and to the Royal Swedish Navy at its quincentenary."--Provided by the publisher. 2023. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 359.00916334
Revenge in the name of honour : the Royal Navy's quest for vengeance in the single ship actions of the war of 1812 /Nicholas James Kaizer. "On 19 August 1812, lookouts of the British frigate HMS Guerriere spotted the American frigate, USS Constitution. Captain James Dacres, Guerriere's commander, was eager for a fight and confident of victory. He had the weight of Britain's naval reputation and confidence behind him. Yet when the guns fell silent Guerriere was a shattered hulk and Dacres had struck to Constitution. By the year's end, three British frigates and two sloops had been defeated in single ship actions against American opponents, throwing the British naval sphere into a crisis. These losses could not have been more shocking to the Royal Navy and the British world. In a strange reversal, the outnumbered British Army along the Canadian border had triumphed but the tiny United States Navy had humiliated the world's largest and most prestigious navy. Further dramatic sea battles between the two powers followed into early 1815, and the British tried to reconcile the perceived stain to the Royal Navy's honour. Many within and outside of the Royal Navy called for vindication. The single ship actions of the War of 1812 have frequently been dismissed by historians of the war, or of naval history in general. The fights of late 1813 and 1814 are often omitted from works of history altogether, as many (correctly) argue that they had no strategic impact on the wider course of the war. Yet to contemporaries, naval and civilian alike, these single ship actions could not have been more important. This volume explores the single ship naval actions during the War of 1812: how they were fought, their strategic context, and their impact on the officers and men who fought them, and the wider British psyche. Trafalgar happened only seven years earlier, and the fighting ethos of the Royal Navy was still hardened by Nelsonic naval culture. Whereas contemporary civilians and modern historians understood the losses as the inevitable result of fighting the vastly superior American 'super' frigates, the officers of the navy struggled to accept that they could not cope with the new American warships. The losses precipitated changes to Admiralty policy and drove an urge for vengeance by the officers of the Royal Navy. This volume explores the drama and impact of the British single ship losses and victories to examine Britain's naval experience in the moments that captivated the British and American world in the last Anglo-American War."--Provided by the publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.49"1812"(42:73)
Battle of the Atlantic : gauntlet to victory /Ted Barris "The years 2019 to 2025 mark the 80th anniversary of the longest battle of the Second World War. The Battle of the Atlantic also proved to be the war's most critical and dramatic battles of attrition. For five and a half years, German surface warships and submarines attempted to destroy Allied trans-Atlantic convoys, mostly escorted by Royal Canadian destroyers and corvettes, as well as aircraft of Royal Canadian Air Force. Throwing deadly U-boat 'wolf packs' in the paths of the convoys, the German Kriegsmarine almost succeeded in cutting off this vital life line to a beleaguered Great Britain. In 1939, the Royal Canadian Navy went to war with exactly thirteen warships and about 3,500 regular servicemen and reservists. During the desperate days and nights of the Battle of the Atlantic, the RCN grew to 400 fighting ships and over 100,000 men and women in uniform. By V-E Day in 1945, it had become the fourth largest navy in the world. The Battle of the Atlantic lasted 2,074 days. It claimed more than 4,000 lives--men and women in the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Merchant Navy. It was Canada's longest continuous military engagement of the Second World War. The story of Canada's naval awakening from the dark, bloody winters of 1939-1942, to be ready-aye-ready to challenge the U-boats, indeed to drive them to defeat 1943-1945, is a Canadian wartime saga for the ages. While Canadians think of the Great War battle of Vimy Ridge as Canada's coming of age, it was the Battle of the Atlantic that proved to be Canada's gauntlet to victory and a nation-building milestone."-- [2022] • BOOK • 1 copy available. 940.54/5971
The Durham papers : selections from the papers of Admiral Sir Philip Charles Henderson Calderwood Durham, G.C.B. (1763-1845) /edited by Hilary L. Rubinstein "Admiral Sir Philip Durham (1763?1845) was one of the most distinguished and colourful officers of the late Georgian Navy. His lucky and sometimes controversial career included surviving the sinking of HMS Royal George in 1782, making the first conquest of the tricolour flag in 1793 and the last in 1815, and having two enemy ships surrender to him at Trafalgar. A Scot distantly related to Lord Barham, Durham entered the Navy in 1777, serving initially on the American and West Indies stations. He was Kempenfelt's signal officer on HMS Victory during the second battle of Ushant in 1781 and on the Royal George. Making his reputation initially as the daring young master and commander of HMS Spitfire early in the French Revolutionary War, he became a crack frigate captain with a fortune in prize money, and commanded HMS Defiance at Trafalgar, where he was wounded. He ended his war service as Commander-in-Chief, Leeward Islands. En voyage he artfully captured two brand-new French frigates which were subsequently taken into the service of Britain, and during his tenure he won the heartfelt gratitude of local merchants by ridding the surrounding seas of American privateers preying on British trading vessels. True to form, he clashed with the judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court on Antigua and with the general with whom he led a combined naval and military assault on Martinique and Guadeloupe following Napoleon's escape from Elba. He later served as Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth having resigned his parliamentary seat to do so. Married first to the sister of the Earl of Elgin, of 'Marbles' fame, and secondly to a cousin of 'sea wolf' Lord Cochrane, he was well-known to George III, who as a result of Durham's amusing yet improbable anecdotes, dubbed any tall tale he heard 'a Durham'. This collection of his papers consists mainly of letters and despatches relating to his service in the Channel Fleet, the Mediterranean, and the Leeward Islands. Correspondence with his parents during 1789?1790 reflects his anxieties relating to employment and prospects for promotion when he was a young lieutenant with an illegitimate child to support. The collection, featuring items from and to him, comprises a fascinating and informative set of documents."--Provided by publisher. 2019. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 061.22NRS